Arizona Theatre Company Season by Season

LIST OF PRODUCTIONS

1967-68 Generation, The Mousetrap, The Best Man, The Fantasticks, The Owl and the Pussycat, Hansel and Gretel, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, No Exit, A Case of Libel, A View from the Bridge, What’s New

1968-69 Love in E-Flat, The Threepenny Opera, The Time of Your Life, A Thousand Clowns, Chicago/Birdbath, The Subject was Roses, Lysistrata, A Delicate Balance, The Private Ear/The Public Eye, The Littlest Tailor, ABC Pinocchio

1969-70 Carnival, Dear Friends, Don’t Drink the Water, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, A Man for All Seasons ,Have you any Dirty Washing, Mother Dear?, Spoon River Anthology, The Hobbit, The Dandy Lion

1970-71 You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running, Summertree, The Price, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, The Odd Couple, The Boys in the Band, Adaptation/Next/Calm Down Mother/Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool, Dry Place Celebration

1971-72 West Side Story, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Cyrano

1972-73 Conflict of Interest, Norman, Is That You?, Stop the World – I Want to Get Off!, Child’s Play, The Gingerbread Lady

1973-74 Inherit the Wind, A Christmas Carol, Promenade, All, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris ,The School for Wives, Of Mice and Men

1974-75 A Streetcar Named Desire, Sherlock Holmes, The Hot l Baltimore, That Championship Season, Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill, The Taming of the Shrew, Diamond Studs

1995-96 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Little Shop of Horrors, Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities, Candida, A Perfect Ganesh , Private Eyes, Shakespeare for My Father

1996-97 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Three Tall Women, Swinging on a Star: The Johnny Burke Musical, La Malinche, The Illusion, Seven Guitars

1997-98 Othello (with the Royal National Theatre), Blithe Spirit, Valley Song, Five Guys Named Moe, The Heiress, Rocket Man, Scapin

1998-99 Picasso at the Lapin Agile (also performed in Scottsdale), Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm, Blues for an Alabama Sky, How I Learned to Drive, The Last Night of Ballyhoo

The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm opens on a tangle of writhing bodies, underscored by pulsating lights and throbbing bass beats in the musical score.

Purists feel their hackles rise.

It is George and Ira Gershwin repackaged as an MTV moment. The great songwriters of the ’20s and ’30s are rudely jerked from their era and grafted onto the frenetic, politically incorrect, gender-confused tail-end of the 1990s.

Rudely? Some would say crudely.

In the 90 minutes that follow, Arizona Theatre Company audiences are treated to some of the finest popular songs ever written, reinterpreted for modern sensibilities by director Mark Lamos in a style that runs the risk of offending as many as it impresses.

It may be – and in this critic’s opinion is – one of the finest musical revue ever staged in Phoenix, but it isn’t the Gershwins as heard on The Lawrence Welk Show or at a performance by the New York Philharmonic.

The brothers never intended Isn’t It a Pity? to be sung as a lesbian love duet or They Can’t Take That Away From Me as a gut-wrenching tribute to those who have succumbed to AIDS-related illnesses. Slap That Bass wasn’t written as a sly dig at the excesses of overtly sexual choreographers.

Yet here they are, tricked out in riffs and scats that owe more to Michael Bolton and Mariah Carey than to Paul Whiteman and Ella Fitzgerald.

Or is it that they just seem that way? Arranger Mel Marvin and orchestrator Larry Hochman haven’t tampered with these musical icons as much as one might think. Yes, there’s a country tinge to But Not for Me, an echo of Stomp underlying I Got Rhythm, a homage to Rent in the way the cast belts out Hang on to Me, but these are not radical overhauls.

If anything, the opposite is true of evergreens such as I’ve Got a Crush on You, Someone to Watch Over Me, Embraceable You and Nice Work If You Can Get It. They may depart slightly from the norm in tempo and phrasing, but the songs remain recognizably, intrinsically Gershwin.

What Lamos and his designers have done is take melodies written anywhere from 60 to 80 years ago and give them a presence that visually and aurally is as up-to-date as a VH-1 special or morning drive time with Beth and Bill on KEZ-FM. It doesn’t go too far; it’s not hip-hop, arena rock or gangsta rap. It goes just far enough to make a contemporary listener believe the Gershwins were not only of their time but for all generations.

The cast of The Gershwin’s Fascinating Rhythm is as young as its creators’ take on the music. Or maybe that too is an illusion. The talent on display at the Herberger Theater Center doesn’t reach that level without some heavy-duty honing.

Sara Ramirez’s voice, to point out one of the evening’s more delectable treats, may be a gift from the gods, but the wrapping – the way she takes a song, colors it, shapes it, plays around with it in a voice that is like terry cloth, soft and thick and a little rough to the touch – is distinctly her own.

Nor did dancer Jill Nicklaus come from the womb knowing how to wrap her long legs around a dance partner that way or the single-name Jillian rise from the cradle with that incredible scatting. Kena Tangi Dorsey’s comic skills took polishing. David Elder and Romain Fruge needed some life experience to be able to add that kind of nuance to their melodies.

If these are gifts, then they are the gifts of hard work as much as genes. No, “new” may be a better description of the cast. Although their resumes list everything from Titanic to Jelly’s Last Jam to a Madonna tour, these are not familiar faces. Well, Elder’s is, sort of; he played baseball player Joe Hardy in Jerry Lewis’ production of Damn Yankees that stopped at Gammage Auditorium a couple of years ago.

If The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm lands on Broadway as planned, that anonymity is doomed. The Big Apple and its media have a way of embracing talent if only for a month or two.

Collaboration never has seemed as important as it does here. Credit Lamos and Marvin with the concept and Lamos with the tight, pacey production, but it is the designers who earn equal billing with the cast.

Would this revue be as satisfying, as awe-inspiring, without Paul Tazewell’s colorful costumes, Cynthia Kortman’s sensitive musical direction or Abe Jacob’s cleanly defined sound? Hardly. Any more than it would have audiences applauding so wildly if it were lacking David Marques’ choreography.

The man is a find, influenced by Bob Fosse and Savion Glover, but in the process of developing a unique dance language. Where Fosse might cock an elbow or bend a knee, he goes for a sensual roll of the shoulder or buttocks; where Glover might add a street-smart strut, he opts for a sensual glide. Marques is a major work-in-progress, and Phoenix audiences don’t often get a chance to see that.

As for Peggy Eisenhauer’s lighting, it is the stuff of dreams. In Ragtime, Cabaret, Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk and now this, she is setting the standard. Electricity is elevated to three-dimensional character; that accomplishment alone is worth the price of admission.

None of this is to downplay Lamos’ contribution. The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm could have been a collection of pretty tunes. He has chosen to use the music to make sometimes subtle, sometimes painfully obvious comments on contemporary society. It can be funny, the way he sends up psychiatry in Just Another Rhumba, or sneaky, the way he gently spoofs the relationship of Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche in Isn’t It a Pity?, or sad, the way he underscores an ill-fated love affair by counterpointing The Man I Love with Soon.

It also can be, as it is in the finale, to say more of which would be to dilute its impact, a reminder of the power of music to plumb the very depths of the human heart.

A 14-year-old girl, leaving the theater, turned to her mother and said, “I never knew . . . ”

* The Play: A roof-raising, Tony Award-nominated revue. From chants born under African skies to mournful laments sprung from the Mississippi delta, Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues told its story through traditional African songs, gospels, juke-joint tunes, Delta blues, Chicago blues, and with some surprising turns through hillbilly, country and honky-tonk. The cast of seven caroused their way through classics including W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues,” “Sweet Home Chicago,” “Let the Good Times Roll” and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You.” All infused with the volatile mixture of agony, humor, joy and sex that makes the blues so enduring.

A scene from 2005’s “Macbeth,” arguably one of the finest productions of the Scottish play ever staged in Phoenix. Veteran Phoenix actress Maren Maclean is at far left. (Photo copyrighted by Tim Fuller)

“Somebody/Nobody,” a world premiere comedy by Jane Martin, took a bitingly funny look at America’s obsession with celebrity and fame. By turns hilarious and insightful, it used screwball comedy to shine a spotlight on the absurdity of the Hollywood star machine and the idea that fifteen minutes of fame will make your dreams come true.

******

2009-2010 The Kite Runner, George Is Dead, Ain’t Misbehavin’, [title of show], The Glass Menagerie, The Second City Does Arizona or Close but No Saguaro

2010-2011 Backwards in High Heels, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Romeo and Juliet (Produced with Guthrie Theater and The Acting Company,) Woody Guthrie’s American Song, Ten Chimneys, Lost in Yonkers, Sex and The Second City, Version 2.0, The Mystery of Irma Vep

2011-2012 Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of The Suicide Club, God of Carnage, Daddy Long Legs, Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, The Great Gatsby, Red, Café Bohemia

* The Play: Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud pioneered the Id, the Ego and the Superego. Writer C.S. Lewis created The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Two men, both brilliant, yet vastly different: Freud the atheist, Lewis the believer. They meet in 1939 as England goes to war against the Nazis. Their evening of electrifying conversation about God, love, sex, and the meaning of life sparked controversy long after the show is over. Prior to coming to Phoenix, Freud’s Last Session drew record-breaking crowds for more than two years in New York.

* The Play: At a refined bachelor flat trouble is brewing! In Oscar Wilde’s most popular creation, Jack is in love with Gwendolen, Algernon is in love with Cecily and Gwendolen and Cecily are in love with Ernest, who in fact does not exist. In a tangle of mistaken identity and delicious wordplay, the lovers also face the indomitable force of Lady Bracknell, one of the great roles of theater. Full of sparkling wit, provocative remarks and satirical humor at every turn.

* The Play: The Lorraine Motel. Memphis. 1968. In this gripping re-imagining of the events on the eve of his assassination, we find Martin Luther King in his hotel room after delivering his most memorable speech – when an unexpected visitor arrives with surprising news. Through this encounter, Dr. King is forced to confront his doubts, destiny and legacy to his people. A hit in London and on Broadway, The Mountaintop gives insight into King, the man. Notes: Co-production with Penumbra Theatre Company at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis. Arizona Premiere.

* The Play: In this Broadway hit, Kira, a beautiful, magical Greek muse, is sent on a quest from the heavens to inspire a young artist to achieve his greatest dream – to build the first roller disco. Hey, it’s 1980! A delightful spoof of the Olivia Newton-John / Gene Kelly film, the roller-skating, disco-dancing adventure wove a tale of endless fun while delivering popular ’80s songs like “Magic,” “All Over the World,” “Suddenly,” “I’m Alive,” “Evil Woman,” and “Xanadu.”

* The Play: Meet the Wyeths, a seemingly-perfect upper middle class family replete with wealth, political influence and A-list connections “living the dream” in Palm Springs. Then their daughter Brooke arrives home for the holidays to reveal the impending publication of her ‘tell-all’ memoir. The critically acclaimed Broadway crackled with wit, razor-sharp one-liners, a fierce cast of characters and a storyline that grabs the audience from the opening scene to the riveting conclusion.

* The Play: Stampeding elephants! Raging typhoons! Runaway trains! ATC audiences packed their bags for the trip of a lifetime. In 1872 London, Phileas Fogg believes that, with modern transportation, it’s now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. Impossible! It’s a whirlwind journey filled with exotic locales and great fun.

Kyle Sorrell, Bob Sorenson, Mark Anders, Yolanda London and Jon Gentry in Around the World in 80 Days. Photo copyrighted by Tim Fuller for Arizona Theatre Company.Yolanda London, Mark Anders, Bob Sorenson, Kyle Sorrell and Jon Gentry in Arizona Theatre Company’s Around the World in 80 Days. Photo copyrighted by Tim Fuller/Arizona Theatre Company.Jon Gentry is in a precarious position in ATC’s “Around the World in 80 Days.” Photo copyrighted by Tim Fuller/Arizona Theatre Company.Mark Anders, Yolanda London and Jon Gentry in “Around the World in 80 Days,” 2014, Arizona Theatre Company, (Photo copyrighted by Tim Fuller)

* The Play: One of the sexiest, intelligent, most acclaimed new plays in recent Broadway history. Venus in Fur introduced audiences to Vanda, a startlingly talented young actress determined to land the lead in a new play based on a classic erotic novel. When Vanda shows up hours late for her appointment, she knows she may have blown her chances. Her emotionally charged audition for Thomas, the demanding playwright/director, becomes an electrifying game of cat and mouse that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, seduction and power, love and sex.

* The Play: In rural Bucks County, PA, Vanya and Sonia have frittered their lives away in their family’s farmhouse full of regret, angst and the alarmingly ambiguous prophecies of their house keeper. Enter their sister, self-absorbed movie star Masha, and the stage is set for an absurd weekend of hilarity and global warming. This Broadway sensation delights audiences with abundant comic twists.

The Play: A thriller from the author of Dial M For Murder. Don’t let Susan Hendrix’s quaint Greenwich Village apartment fool you; hidden within is a treasure for which con men would kill. Susan, tragically blinded in an automobile accident, unwittingly becomes the key player in a dangerous game threatening all she holds dear. Employing disguise and deception, two crooks become increasingly desperate and depraved, but must wait until dark to play out the chilling conclusion.

* The Play: A blend of music, mayhem and murder, two performers play 13 roles—not to mention the piano—in a witty and winking homage to old-fashioned murder mysteries. The off-Broadway run packed ’em in. Note: Arizona Premiere.

Joe Kinosian and Ian Lowe play many different characters (and the piano!) in the mystery spoof, “Murder for Two,” produced by Arizona Theatre Company in 2014/2015. Photographer not credited.

* The Play: A world premiere by the Emmy Award-winning writer of The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Mad Men and House of Cards. It’s April 27, 1994. In Yorba Linda, California, the five living Presidents – Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton – gather in a conference room to wait for the start of Richard Nixon’s funeral. A loving, witty and touching speculation on what may have happened at this true-life event, Five Presidents provides a humanizing and unforgettable look at five men trying to find relevance after being the most powerful people in the world.

APRIL – MAY 2015. A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Playwright: Herbert Siguenza. Based on the writings of Pablo Picasso.

* The Play: The work of Pablo Picasso forever changed the way that the world looks at art. This one-man show, written by and starring actor and artist Herbert Siguenza, may forever change the way that you think about Picasso. In a performance that explodes with color, Picasso’s most intimate thoughts rip through the air with each thundering brushstroke as Siguenza creates six new masterpieces live on stage in this Arizona premiere. He rages, dances, takes a bath, admonishes, philosophizes, scolds – and paints, right in front of the audience. Note: Arizona premiere.